May 18, 2024

PCM girls look to snatch that elusive HOIAC championship

By Troy Hyde

Prairie City-Monroe’s Kayla Jennings, right, battles Knoxville’s Sierra Kendall for a loose ball during both team’s season opener last Friday. The Panthers beat PCM for the second straight season, winning 54-47. (Troy Hyde)

MONROE — Prairie City-Monroe girls’ basketball coach Bret Grier isn’t too worried about his senior trio talking openly about conference championships and state tournament berths.

Grier welcomes the expectations, embraces them and figures with seven returning players off last year’s 15-8 squad, that his Mustangs should be right in the mix with the other league favorites in the Heart of Iowa Conference.

In his fourth season, Grier welcomes back seniors Courtney VanHouweling, Rachel Freland and Rachel Gulling and also returns a talented crop of sophomores who got valuable experience last year as freshmen.

The expectations of finally winning his first conference championship are there. And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I like to embrace the expectations. I have never won a conference championship since I have been head coach and that is one thing we want to make sure happens this year,” said Grier, a 1999 PCM graduate. “Our three goals are to beat all three of our non-conference teams (Knoxville, Pella and Pella Christian), win the conference and finish the season at the state tournament.”

The Mustangs will try to hoist the HOIAC championship banner this season after finishing in third the last two seasons. PCM was 13-5 in both of those years, trailing Nevada and North Polk each time.

Nevada won the title last year with a 17-1 record and were runner-ups the year prior at 15-3. North Polk was the 2012-13 champion after finishing 16-2 in the league and the Comets also were 16-2 last year in second place.

“I think Nevada is the team that everyone is looking at as the favorite again,” Grier said. “They are really good. And North Polk is always good. They lost some quality players, but they are always in the mix.”

The top four scorers in the league a year ago all graduated. That leaves VanHouweling (14.3) and Freland (13.4) as the top returning scorers in the league. Gulling also is back after averaging more than 7 points per game a season ago.

VanHouweling was a first-team all-HOIAC and first-team all-district representative last year after also leading the team in rebounds at 5.8 per game as well as steals, assists and blocks.

Freland averaged 13.4 points, 3.3 rebounds and five steals per tilt in 13 games with the Mustangs in the second half of last season.

Gulling was an honorable mention all-HOIAC selection a season ago.

The Mustang senior trio won’t be able to collectively advance the Mustangs to the state tournament by themselves though. Their supporting cast will have to take another step forward, too.

Sophomores Katie VandeWall, Jayci Vos, Rachel Stafford and Kayla Jennings all played significant minutes as freshmen and will be counted on for more production this season.

“We have seven players back who played a lot of basketball for us last year and they seemed to work pretty hard over the summer and in the fall,” Grier said. “Some of the freshmen that played last year maybe didn’t know what to expect, but they got their feet wet. They’ll be seasoned sophomores this year.”

Grier said Nevada and North Polk should both again be in the mix to challenge PCM for the conference title. But the Cubs and Comets lost significant pieces to last year’s roster.

Saydel could surprise some in the HOIAC. The Eagles bring back their top seven scorers from last year, including junior Cassie Chubb, who averaged 12.5 points and eight rebounds per game as a sophomore.